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Darwin Mayflower: I'll kill your friends, your family, and the bitch you took to the prom!
Hudson Hawk: Betty Jo Biarski? I can get you an address on that if you want.
A character threatens another with something that not only fails to scare them, but in fact they would consider a favor. For example, saying "I'll Kill You!" to the Death Seeker, or describing the tortures you could use to the person who is Too Kinky to Torture, or telling someone " I Have Your Wife" to be met with the response that You Can Keep Her.
Compare Insult Backfire and Attack Backfire. Often a Sub Trope of Tempting Fate and the related Be Careful What You Say, Threat Backfire is also a common effect of telling someone they have to Go Through Me, responding to someone else's threat with You and What Army?, or using virtually any Stock Phrase featuring the words "over my dead body" or "from my cold, dead fingers". Also a common response to challenges on the lines of "Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do about it?" when the threatened person treats this as if it were a real request for information, to be answered with a practical demonstration of more or less devastating force, accompanied by the answer "This".
This one has a few variations:
- The person being threatened is not being funny, just very Literal-Minded or socio-linguistically tone-deaf. The Comically Serious will often give this kind of response. May also be caused by or overlap with Blunt Metaphors Trauma. Depending on the size and menacingness of the threatened, this one can also be a case of Do Not Taunt Cthulhu.
- The person being threatened knows it's a threat, but decides to take it at the Exact Words face value for comic effect at the other's expense. Most common when the person threatened is a Trickster or Deadpan Snarker. Can still be fatal.
- The person making the threat is either grandstanding or bluffing, and now finds they have to follow through, possibly to their own defeat, if they're even given time to respond at all.
- The person making the threat means it literally, even if they might be hoping it doesn't have to come to that: not quite such a straight play, but still straight-ish. May lead to an Oh Crap moment on the threat-issuer's part.
- Not infrequently sighted subversion: the person on the receiving end of the threat is trying to exploit the fact that it will be taken in Exact Words terms, and is actually Briar Patching. And then, of course, it turns out this one can backfire, or at least misfire, too (see the Futurama example).
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In Full Metal Panic, the I'll Kill You! to a Death Seeker variant appears between Sōsuke and Gauron. Sōsuke, who is sick and tired of Gauron repeatedly not dying when he's supposed to, constantly yells that he'll kill him out of frustration. And Gauron, being Too Kinky to Torture and a depraved thrillseeker, responds to this with ecstasy and joy, normally along the lines of: "OH, I'M SO HAPPY KASHIM!"
- In Black Cat, there's Train's first meeting with Creed. Train, being annoyed that he's assigned a partner, disdainfully tells Creed that he doesn't need him, and pretty much threatens him to shove off or he'll kill him. Unfortunately, Creed is a masochist. Cue Creed constantly stalking Train and bothering him.
- In Fairy Tail, during the Luxus arc, Evergreen threatens to turn many of Fairy Tail's female mages into dust if Erza doesn't submit to her. Erza immediately responds by pointing dozens of swords at Evergreen, and praising Evergreen for valuing victory above her own life.
- In chapter 516 of Naruto, after Kabuto brings Deidara and Sasori back as revenants this exchange occurs:
Sasori: (referring to Kabuto) The Akatsuki must have gone to hell in a hand basket to be taking orders from such a ragged fool...
Deidara: I wouldn't be so arrogant considering you died master "true art is beauty that endures eternally", especially when your weakness is a huge bulls-eye in the middle of your chest! Hm!
Sasori: (menacingly) You want to die too, Deidara?
Deidara: I am dead, both of us are!
- In Dragon Ball Z, Gohan is fighting Cell and is at a distinct disadvantage. However, he knows that if he gets into an Unstoppable Rage, he can probably beat Cell. He warns Cell of this fact, trying to get him to back down. What he fails to consider (which Cell lampshades) is that Cell is the kind of person who wants Gohan at peak form to test the limits of his strength, and Gohan's revelation just makes him determined to press Gohan's Berserk Button and see his hidden power.
Comic Books
- In Secret Six #20, Catman's infant son gets held hostage, and the hostage-takers threaten to drop him off a building. For every one of his team he kills in the next five minutes, they will allow his son to live for one year. After long deliberation, Catman tells them to go ahead and drop his son, and that he is going to hunt them all down. He then goes on a pre-emptive Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- A sleazy little creep is cornered by Boba Fett and Fett's ex-wife Sintas and tries to use a hostage to save his life. It doesn't go quite as planned.
Pizztov: Drop your weapons, or I will be forced to kill this annoying female.
Fett: No, kill her.
Sintas: Yeah, I don't care.
Comic Strips
- In Calvin And Hobbes, Calvin's mom once told him the all-too-common parental threat that making faces too often would cause his face to freeze that way. She should have known better than to try that with Calvin. It actually encouraged him to do it more.
Film
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: Austin takes Scott Evil (Dr. Evil's son) hostage.
Austin: It seems the tables have turned again, Dr. Evil.
Dr. Evil: Not really. Kill the little bastard. See what I care.
- From Hudson Hawk:
Darwin Mayflower: I'll kill your friends, your family, and the bitch you took to the prom!
Hudson Hawk: Betty Jo Biarski? I can get you an address on that if you want.
- From Men In Black:
Bug: Place projectile weapon on the ground.
Edgar: You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Bug: Your proposal is acceptable.
Dr. Weaver: You don't want to eat me. I'm a very important person on my planet. Like a queen, a goddess even. There are those who worship me. I'm not saying this to impress you, I'm just warning you it could start a war!
"Edgar":note the bug who has taken Edgar's form War? Good! That means more food for my family. All 78 million of them! That's a lot of mouths to feed, your highness!
- Spider-Man 2:
Doc Ock: (entering the carriage) He's MINE!
(All the other passengers take up his claim and surround Spider-Man)
Doc Ock: Very well...
(Doc Ock shoves the passengers aside with his tentacles)
- In Ruthless People, two clueless kidnappers snatch Danny De Vito's wife and threaten to kill her. Since he was planning on doing that himself it isn't much of a threat.
- And, of course...Star Wars:
Greedo: Jabba's through with you. He has no use for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser.
Han Solo: Even I get boarded sometimes. Do you think I had a choice?
Greedo: You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.
Han Solo: Over my dead body!
Greedo: That's the idea... I've been looking forward to this for a long time.
- And then Han inverts it on Greedo:
Grievous: I've been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku himself.
Obi-Wan: Good, because I trained the Jedi who killed Count Dooku.
- In The Matrix series:
Seraph: I need to speak with him.
Club Hel bouncer: The only way you're getting through that door is over my big, dead ass.
Seraph: So be it. *asskicking ensues*
- In the 2009 Star Trek:
"Cupcake": Maybe you can't count, farmboy, but there's four of us and only one of you.
Kirk: So get a few more guys, and then it'll be an even fight.
- In The Dark Knight, Lucius Fox to accountant Reese, who is threatening to expose Bruce Wayne as Batman: "Let me get this straight: You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands. And your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck." Somewhat subverted in that his failure to successfully blackmail the company didn't stop him from threatening to reveal the secret anyway; the Joker took care of that.
- In Unstoppable, Galvin threatens to fire Frank if he tries to chase down the runaway train. Problem is, Frank was 13 days away from getting laid off, so he doesn't care if he loses his job a little earlier than he was planning.
- Happy Gilmore: Shooter McGavin gets nailed this way multiple times.
McGavin: I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.
Happy: You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
- In the horror film "Midnight Movie" the cop tells the killer that if he wants to get to the girl behind him, "You'll have to go through me." The villain obliges. Literally.
- In the first Transformers movie, Sam Witwicky was arrested due to going to the junkyard and presumably for stealing a car (which the police were ironically responding to his call about someone stealing his car). While being interrogated at the police station, the Sheriff asks Sam if he was on drugs, but denies it, although the police man seems to find incriminating evidence of pills in him (although the pills were actually his dog's painkillers, which his parents backed him up). The Policeman then tries to threaten to bust him upon letting him go free, only for it to backfire when Sam Witwicky asks him if the policeman was on drugs.
- Towards the end of The Rocketeer, as Cliff Secord fights movie star Neville Sinclair who's actually a Nazi spy, aboard a Nazi zeppelin:
Cliff: (after punching Sinclair) Where's your stuntman now, Sinclair?
(Sinclair punches Cliff back)
Sinclair: I do my own stunts.
- In The Stinger of the The Avengers. Although it probably wasn't intended as a threat or warning, it sounds like it to the audience.
- In Dreamworks' The Road to El Dorado, two Spanish con men (Tulio and Miguel) find the city of gold and are mistaken for gods. Immediately taking advantage of this, they warn that they are not to be trifled with, or else they will bring their wrath upon the city. "And you don't want that, do you?" Unfortunately, that's exactly what the High Priest wants - for the gods to clense the city of the wicked and visit their wrath upon the non-believers. Moments later, a series of coincidences makes it look like Miguel and Tulio avert a volcanic eruption, so their cover isn't blown yet.
- A diplomatic example in The Wind and the Lion
Ambassador: "Have you ever heard of the "Big Stick", Your Excellency?"
Bashaw: "Do not threaten me, Mr. Gummere. I have been threatened by the French, the Germans, the English... I have been threatened by...experts."
- In Money Train, John and Charlie find Patterson's threat "I'll fuck ya dead" more confusing than intimidating. In private, Charlie asks John "do you think he's gonna fuck us before or after we're dead?"
- In The Godfather, the film producer wasn't intimidated by the threat that "either his brains or his signature" would end up on the paper. Corleoni's men famously found a more persuasive tactic.
Literature
Live Action TV
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer ("Buffy versus Dracula"), Xander, who has been Renfielded, tells Riley that if he wants "The Master" "you will have to go through me first". Riley flatly responds "Okey-dokey" and punches him out of the way.
- On Dan For Mayor Mike believes (rightfully) that Dan caused Mike's fiance to break off their engagement. To get revenge on Dan, he buys the bar where Dan is working just so he can fire him. Dan is quite happy about it since he was going to quit later that day, and this way he is owed severance pay which he would not get if he quit on his own.
- On NCIS, Gibbs is threatened in the usual way by a gangster: "...I'll kill your brothers, your uncles, your father. And after their funerals, I'll kill you." Gibbs responds, "No brothers, no uncles, my father passed years ago. I do have three ex-wives, whose names and addresses I will gladly fax on to you..." "huh. He hung up."
- In an episode of Homeland, Saul and Carrie try to blackmail information out of a rich Middle Eastern man. Their first threat, exposing him as gay, doesn't work, possibly because part of him wants to come out anyway.
- Band Of Brothers: To keep him in line, Captain Sobel arranges some obviously frivolous charges against Winters, and tells him he can either lose his weekend pass, which he never uses anyway, or face court-martial. Winters requests trial by court-martial, which winds up revealing Sobel's pettiness to the higher ups and gets Sobel Kicked Upstairs to non-combat training duties.
- In Hannibal, Will Graham's threat to Freddie Lounds only gives her more material to work with in making him look mentally unstable.
Theater
- A Very Potter Sequel: Draco orders Crabbe and Goyle to shake Ron and Hermione to win Harry over.
Draco: Thinking about being my friend yet, Potter?
Harry: No way!
(beat)
Harry: Yeah. You can torture my friends all you want!
Video Games
- In Tales Of Monkey Island, McGillicutty captures the MerLeader and threatens hir with death by drowning if s/he doesn't turn over the MacGuffin. The threat proves less than effective and McGillicutty is too crazed to realize it.
- Immortal Souls has this little exchange between the main character and the Hero Antagonist. Considering Desmond is both a Jerkass and has No Sense of Humor it's hard to tell whether he's being obtuse or intentionally antagonistic.
John: You'll pay for what you've done here, you self-righteous bastards!
Desmond: Indeed, we shall be rewarded greatly in the pinnacle of Heaven.
- Variation is the Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadowbroker. The person Shepard's pursuing takes a hostage and demands Shepard back off Or Else. One possible response is Shepard listing off the decisions s/he has made that has resulted in mass casualties/genocide/unleashing hostile aliens, and then asking if she believes Shepard won't be willing to shoot a single hostage is really her plan.
- On assorted occasions various characters make threats about coming after Shepard. Usually just before Shepard shoots them in the face.
- A similar variation in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening if your Warden Commander in the expansion is the same one from the original. Early on, your Warden is established as the ruler of a portion of land in your country. Your estate receives a letter from a noble, informing you that his daughter is kidnapped and begging you to pay the ransom for him because he can't get the money quickly enough. When you arrive at the meet, the bandit leader is angry that someone other than the noble showed up, and your Warden can casually mention "yeah, he couldn't make it, so he sent the commander of the Grey Wardens instead." The bandits get worried, and you can almost see one of them losing bladder control as he yelps out "The one who killed the Archdemon??", but the leader says "well, make any moves and we'll kill the girl!" Your character can basically shrug and say "Really? There's a river of blood behind me. Well, if that's what you want," which causes half the bandits, including the ones holding the girl, to run like hell. Bonus points if your Warden is an Arcane Warrior. Of course, the rest of the bandits decide to fight you. Guess how that ends.
Web Comics
- In Kevin & Kell, Kell, recently terminated from Herd Thinners, decides to set up her own company to rival it (after some encouragement and funding from the Rabbit Council). Her former boss, RL, calls her when he finds out and threatens to crush her company and devour her. She's thrilled that RL sees her as a threat.
- In Oglaf, the vampire Navaan tells Ivan that she's going to kill him... but first she's going to have sex with him. When his response is a delighted smile, she backs off in confusion: all her other victims have been lifelong virgins for whom sex is a genuine Fate Worse Than Death.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Briar Patching backfire: in the first episode of Futurama, Fry is upset at the fact he's been assigned the job of "delivery boy";
Fry: What if I refuse to do it?
Leela: Then you'll be fired...
Fry: Fine!
Leela: ...out of a cannon. Into the sun.
- In The Venture Brothers, a villain threatens Dr. Venture with the death of his sons, shouting, "GIVE ME THE HAND OF OSIRIS!" Doc's response? "Give me head." This horrifies the villain.
- The Justice League episode, "Divided We Fall" provides this example:
Flash: No! (vibrates arms fast enough so as to escape from Brainiac's mechanical guards.)
(Threat appears to take effect. Flash slumps forward and cautiously retreats, then turns around and speeds away.)
- Done even earlier by Vandal Savage in the episode 'Hereafter'. Superman is shot 30,000 years into the future, where he and Savage are the only remaining people on Earth. When Superman hears how Savage killed the Justice League, he beats him down before lifting a rock and declaring:
Superman: I should smash your skull.
Savage: Go ahead. We both know it wouldn't work.
- One of Family Guy's Cutaway Gag bits had a slave trader getting annoyed by the slaves constantly asking "Are we there yet?" Finally he yells "If you don't stop it I'm turning this ship around right now!"
- The Penguins of Madagascar, when Skipper has stolen the batteries from Julien's boombox to shut him up:
Skipper: You can have this battery when you pry it from my cold dead flippers!
Julien: Ew, sounds gross. But do-able!
- Grandpa Marsh is a Death Seeker on South Park.
Cartman: You piece of crap! I'll kill you!
Grandpa: That's the spirit, tubby!
Officer: Freeze, asshole!
Grandpa: Aw, go ahead and shoot me! I dare ya!
Officer: Don't push me, man!
Grandpa: Pull the trigger, you little pussy!
- Cheryl from Archer causes this in a few occasions: threaten to kill her and she'll probably rip her top off in anticipation of her world's gushiest orgasm.
- In a Treehouse of Horror episode, Maggie is revealed to be Kang's daughter and he and Kodos have come to take her away. After Jerry Springer fails to solve the problem, they give an ultimatum:
Kang: Anywho, this is your last chance. Turn over the baby now.
Kodos: Or we will destroy all your leaders in Washington.
Marge: [knowingly] Oh, you couldn't destroy *every* politician.
Kang: Just watch us. [laughing menacingly, they board their flying saucer and take off]
Bart: Don't forget Ken Starr!
Marge: Suckers.
- From the series finale of MEG As XLR.
Evil Coop: You know you don't have a chance.
- In The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy Hoss Delgado has Grim under his gun and says him he's gonna send him to back to hell. Grim gleefully cheers for him to do it, as it would free him from Billy and Mandy, Hoss changes his mind and leaves.
Real Life
- The KGB once tried to blackmail the French consul, by threatening to expose him with pictures of him having sex with other men. His response? "Go ahead, I don't care. Everybody knows I'm gay."
- This was actually a valid blackmail tactic during the Cold War, when homosexuality was still illegal in most countries. Western security agencies viewed homosexuals as a security risk for precisely this reason, leading to tragedies like the suicide of Alan Turing.
- Apparently, something similar was considered by the CIA: to discredit a Middle Eastern leader they were going to leak fake pictures of the man having sex with teenage boys. It wouldn't have worked; apparently, in this man's country, such acts were considered a minor transgression, like a French president's mistress.
- The standard response when somebody threatens to leave an Internet forum: "And nothing of value was lost."
- Some forums have admins who, by policy, give these people a helpful whack with the ban hammer on the way out to make sure they follow through.
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